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Thanks Lighthouse!!

This is what I am talking about. I need to know and address issues like this.

You are right that print may be a waste for you but direct mail or a targeted email campaign would not. It isn't only about getting clients it is about growing and cultivating the relationships. Think newsletter - print or electronic. Look into sponsoring seminars or even a 30 minute radio program. There are webcasts, podcasts and micro-sites that can be targeted to specialized clientele.

Do you have any leave behind materials for your clients? If so, how well designed are there? Do they all communicate your core business belief? Do they present your business in a positive light to clients and potential clients?

Lighthouse, it is great to hear someone say that they can be everything to everyone - that is really smart.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Iwrite.

Iwrite, I was trying to say that I CAN'T be everything to everyone (and am not trying to be). And yes, I am currently using ALL of the techniques you inquired about. Thanks.

Iwrite, I wish you were in my area. I would like to create an advertising division of my company. I've been trying to find someone with your energy and willingness, to do what it takes to serve the customer, in my area and I just haven't found anyone that I feel has it. Granite, I don't know you, but you speak the way I like people to speak about what they do for a living. I too feel I know my customers better than anyone. That is why I want to create a whole new medium of advertising. I'm headed out of town soon. Please drop me a note and I'd like to talk to you some time next week.

By now your quest has probably given you some great insight into your question. The latest ad slump almost begs to question why a company would need an agency. Even the most respected leader of national advertisers can't seem to find much optimism for the industry. It is not a big secret any more among the advertisers that advertising has fallen off a cliff. In fact it continues to surprise me that there is still as much as there is being spent despite the low and sometimes negative return. Sometimes you actually wonder why some companies continue to waste their dollars on what everyone knows does not work effectively. (Related article: *Traditional advertising in danger*) While iProceed.com has been concerned about advertising for a while, their hypothesis was validated when James D. Speros, the Chairman of the Association of National Advertisers (and the Chief Marketing Officer at Ernst & Young) admits to it. He writes in Fortune, "...advertising is no longer the be all and end all of moving product...Where we're all missing the boat is the lack of focus on creating big ideas that resonate with consumers. Instead of paying agencies by labor-based fees and commission, we should pay by the value of the marketing ideas they create."

Ouch! It's probably not music to the ears of many advertisers and the agencies that they work with.

There are two good things about Speros' admission:

1. The folks in the advertising world are finally admitting that there is a fundamental problem.
2. Things have to change everywhere: advertisers, advertising agencies, and the media.

I've always known there had to be a better way, because I've been on both the buying and the selling side of the business. The downward spiral of advertising has also led me to question how an agency (or for that matter a newspaper, broadcast station or any other part of the ad delivery system) would know how to market and advertise another business when they haven't figured out how to market and advertise their own company. In other words, if your agency isn't expert enough to stay in business and prosper, how could you possibly help someone else in another business you may know less about?

Some have said that advertising roughly pays for itself with a variable return, but on average at a dime to a quarter on the dollar. If that is true and if I had 90 days to pay for it, I'd start a new business today and buy all the advertising in the world. Anyone would. But we know that isn't true, don't we? Otherwise someone by now would've proposed spending all of the federal stimulus on advertising.

The fact that P & G, Mr. Speros and many other complaints over the years about the professionalism, lack of creativity and focus of the ad industry have gone mostly unnoticed. Mr. Speros comment were in 2004, long before the most recent recession. This leads some to say the problems with advertising may have caused the recession. As you say, most industries are also in some trouble today, but mxing a trouble with trouble may not always be productive, especially with a field that would be in enough trouble regardless of the economy. In fact, we are taught that advertising is needed less in a good economy and needed more in a poor one. And don't forget that Mr. Speros is hardly unbiased based on his position(s) at the top of the field, but it is true that recognizing the problem is a good first step. His pie-in-the-sky solution is another way of saying there is a lack of creative ingenuity that may not soon exist in an industry already at the bottom of the pay scale among fields that today's college students are considering. We should applaud someone in his position(s) for being as forthcoming and using a half-empty phrase as opposed to spelling out the solution in more positive terms. Of course advertising in the broadest sense includes a lot more than the industry itself and I think there are many avenues a company can use to succeed, but first there has to be a buyer beware mentality that can sometimes lead one to do exactly the opposite of what the industry may suggest. A survey out just this week by Nielsen points out that in a study of a quarter of a million people, consumers with a margin of ten to one say they trust their peers more than any other form of marketing or advertising. Of course a company can read that many ways, but one result might be to bypass the industry, drop all advertising and to concentrate on word-of-mouth among a current customer base with rewards and appreciation to help with recruitment of new customers. It might also mean doing advertisements disguised as news articles (think press releases, creative wording and placement) or it may mean a wine and cheese party every friday night, trade show involvement, or many other things; but it usually means that they will be saving money from what is normally called the advertising business. For example, Ford Motor Company recently decided to abandon the policy of having a mass market advertising campaign with the release of a new car (Fiesta) and to rely on bloggers instead. True, they are giving the bloggers use of the car for a short period of time, but dealers have done that for years without the blogs, so the advertising industry is really miffed. There are countless other ways companies are leaving the ad industry, and indeed the automotive industry has been advertising's largest customer. Advertising needs a 12 step program that has yet to be enacted or taught in college. In the meantime...buyer beward, think smart, follow your gut and hang on to your wallet.